The way that I end up subtracting is usually... well, yeah. Left to right. Makes things easier when thinking about the result... though somehow I completely overthought that problem and came up with 10. At least the mathematics test I took today accept any logic as long as the solution is reached validly. I know though that Common Core does put a lot of emphasis on the "visualization" of numbers, such as fractions. I tend to disagree with the emphasis on conceptualization and prefer a focus on the understanding of what numbers are. Hell, if they even taught what mathematics is in school, kids might actually enjoy it for once. Sadly, they currently fail miserably at doing so. Is it so hard to explain that it is just the study of the results of setting a few basic rules and seeing where they end up?

This "Common Core" crap is going to fail just as hard as "New Math" did back in the 60's. It's places demands on the teachers that are too specific in their requirements while being too lax in regards to the method in which the material is taught. Like Ispil pointed out, people think differently so instead of forcing them to learn by one specific method what should be happening is an effort to sort the students into classes that teach to their mindsets.

Warning Rant:
It seems to me at least that it's the methods of teaching allowed that really cause the confusion for students in schools. Just this past week I spent 20+ mins on the phone with my daughters teacher trying to explain to her why I was upset with the way she was teaching addition. She was teaching them like so: "1 and 1 is 2", "2 and 2 is 4" etc. She could not for the life of her understand why she was wrong. Her only defense to my objection was that she has "... been teaching math this way for more then 30 years." and that I was " ... the first parent to complain about (her) choice of words.". I barely got her to concede that the word 'and' was not descriptive enough but I'm honestly starting to think that this women is retarded.

Well, I hesitate to join this thread now... as I was planning earlier...

I don't think the Common Core is "crap" ... but that's all I'll say about that as a response. You should worry more about how your state legislatures will mandate a Common Core Curriculum.

Common Core == interstate level
Common Core Curriculum == local level

BTW, "one and one is two" is actually the correct language for addition. "And" means addition. Always has. Always will. Your daughter's teacher is not retarded and her mastery of English is correct (at least in this instance).

RE: the blatantly Anti Common Core political ad
You should be aware that that's an ad designed to present CCS in a negative light. The method is not in the common core. (No method is, BTW. Methodology is up to your local legislatures, just as always.)

The first clue the video is fallacious is the total lack of transparency. It basically says, "This is what common core says." Where? At what grade level? They don't say. You are left wondering who in their right mind would teach addition that way?

The video would have you believe that educational professionals who have struggled to improve education the world over for years would. Good thing us Mericans are smarter than everyone else, right? Because, clearly, our education system, though broken, is not so broken that we turned out to be so smart that we can judge things we know nothing about better than people who have spent their lives studying it.

Having gone through the public education system does not make you a master of what it takes to be a teacher, or to teach others.

the math
The trick the "student" in the video used was designed to mislead and confuse you. Your first thought is "Where did they even pull those numbers from?"

Basic math.

32 - 12 = 20.

That's the same as saying 12 + 20 = 32.

Which is the same as saying 12 + (3 + 5 + 10 + 2) = 32.

Where the "student" stops after each addition is irrelevant. He chooses to move to the next multiple of 5, then 10, then 10 again, then finally what remains is 2.

It is something of a "by parts" counting trick, but (mis)applied to addition to confuse you. It's no different than counting on your fingers from 12 to 32.

the "student"
The "student" is Caleb Bonham, a hardcore right-wing Republican who makes it his mission to find problems with people to his left. (That's the second clue.)

"CampusReform" is an organization created by another extremist to "smash left-wing scum". (Clue three.)

moral of the story
Don't believe everything you see and read on the internet.

I'll admit that I was duped by the video. The math he used wasn't really confusing, it was useless. It was a solution without a problem since subtraction is simple enough to solve in your head. I was taught the "borrow method" for subtraction and, if it applied, I can comfortably do this with a follow up "add to check" before this clown could write out the problem. So yes as a parent I was furious at the thought of this being how my kid would be taught to subtract.

As for "And", it doesn't mean addition. If anything you know that AND is a logic operation all on it's own, I don't care that my kid won't be learning this for years to come, I don't want her to have to unlearn this stuff just because this women can't burden her self with pronouncing one more letter. "And" might imply addition but that is only because addition is the current subject matter. Syntactically it could also imply multiplication or division (although it sounds awkward when used with division, I remember cringing when my teachers did this). If I ask you what is 2 and 3 without any context how do you know if the answer should be 2, 5 or 6? In my opinion it is inaccurate enough to be considered wrong, but if you don't agree with that then it is still ambiguous at best.

For the record the series of events that prompted my phone call with her teacher are as follows: I received a letter from my daughters school indicating that for the fourth year in a row they failed to meet their state assessment standards (thankfully this is my daughters first and ONLY year there). Less then half of their students were proficient in English but this didn't bother me because my kid can already read and truth be told her hand writing is almost better then mine. I saw that only 32% of the children at her grade level were at the state required level for math so I decided to start teaching her at home. My kid didn't know what the word plus meant and didn't recognize the symbol when we first started. So I did what I think is natural for any parent to do in this situation; I had a mild panic attack. After I managed to recover and stop scourging WebMD for every learning disability known to man, I went back to the lesson. My kid eventually caught on that this is the same stuff she had been learning in school and the only thing I can think of is that this "teacher" hasn't spent any time using the correct terminology. Meanwhile I get letters home complaining that my kid doesn't draw her stick figures with five fingers. Priorities?

Further, this is standard usage that predates your births by several hundred years. If your kid isn't learning this in school (or is learning something incorrect as Computergeek01 was) then I'd be concerned about the curriculum.

@Luc Lieber
Logical operations != algebraic operations. The words "and", "or", etc are overloaded in those fields. Just like we overload the word "window" depending on specialization/context.

And frankly, I'm telling you how the rest of the world gets it. (English speaking, at least. I know it works the same way in Spanish, but I can't speak intelligently about other romance languages, and I won't even try for any other, except Japanese, which has specific words for each operation -- tasu for addition, as in ichi tasu ichi wa ni.)

@Computergeek01
I'd be having a pretty careful look at the school district too...

I currently live in podunk wannabe territory, and I can't stand the school systems here. (They're awful!)

I hope to move somewhere better before my daughter has to join kindergarten. If I'm lucky, I'll manage to move back to Cherry Hill.

@LB
It isn't a fragment -- it is a complete thought (with both subject and predicate) referencing an (implied) antecedent. (You must read in the context of the surrounding thoughts. Hint: "would" what? Look for a "would" that comes before, and complete the comparison.)

I'm actually kind of slow at math, but I get there... A lot of fast people like to go left to right, but I've never practiced it any...

If you haven't passed out from disbelief then I propose a little game. Here is the home page for the school district I will buy a beer (assuming you are legal) for the first ten people who can find this data from here: http://www.buffaloschools.org

For those who are thinking that I need to start some kind of grassroots campaign, here is the link to the parents resource portal: http://www.buffaloschools.org/family.cfm?subpage=81578
Please note the 90's style hit counter at the bottom and assume that I am responsible for at least a few dozen of those tallies. Here is the wiki page for my city: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York
Please note the population from the 2012 census in the summary on the right hand side. For those who are truly masochistic, see the graduation rates posted under "Education" further down on the page in Wikipedia. By the way the city of Buffalo is offering to pay in full the college tuition to any SUNY school for the students that graduate from their district. Based on the current trend I have no doubt in my mind that they will be able to afford it without a significant tax hike.

We've done what was spelled out between the lines for us. My wife and I have pulled every string in front of us to get the little one into a charter school next year and we did it. Plan B is my getting a second job as a security guard to put her in a Montessori, we make too much to qualify for aid but our student loans keep us from affording the school. It's kind of cute how that works out isn't it?

Simply moving is a point of contention between my wife and I. I think that leaving the area where our families live and are able to help us with child care leaves too many variables on the table. Her point of view is that this is exactly what her mother did when she left PR and now that women has a phD in finances (why she bothered going that far is something she'll never be able to answer).

Gotta agree with Computergeek here. Even if you take the example and translate it to Spanish, "plus" doesn't become "and." Rather, it ends up being "more" (mas), which is clearly just an abbreviation of "more than" (mas qué), which can be seen in English as another way of describing addition: 5 more than 2 is 7, et cetera. So to Duoas, who stated that it does work this way in Spanish- it doesn't.

Q: If I have an apple in my left hand and an apple in my right hand, how many apples do I have in my hands?

A: You have two apples, but I fail to see how this applies to numbers. Here, you have two apples. The distinction might not seem noteworthy, but it is - you have two of some quantity. When you add 1 and 1 (see, there's the context for the use of "and" here), you are not adding quantities. There are no associated quantities; no units can be found. This is one of the reasons why I hate the visualization of mathematics - the moment you try to do so, it loses its meaning. The moment you try to base math with physical representations, you aren't dealing with the subject at hand. So, I pose my own question: